A couple of weekends ago I made soup and cut up half of a round steak for the meat, so I needed to do something with the other half. Just for grins I soaked it with Worcestershire sauce and a little salt and let it sit in the fridge for about 12 hours before grilling, and this is what I got.

I put it over a hot fire and not only did I get nice grill marks but the grain of the meat really stood out as well.

Sliced against the grain, of course.

Straight Worcestershire usually has a pretty pungent aroma and flavor but the steak itself was rather mellow and actually pretty good. I'm not sure if there was much interaction between the sauce and the beef or if the change came more from the heat of the coals, but it worked out well enough for me to consider trying it on a different cut sometime.

Straight Worcestershire usually has a pretty pungent aroma and flavor but the steak itself was rather mellow and actually pretty good. I'm not sure if there was much interaction between the sauce and the beef or if the change came more from the heat of the coals, but it worked out well enough for me to consider trying it on a different cut sometime.

Those are some good-looking steaks!

It's the direct heat that does it, Brad. I've found the same thing happens with hot peppers as well. The heat mellows out the pungency a lot in both cases, and the hotter the flame, the more this happens.

I actually experimented with this idea a few times. Once I marinated a batch of wings in a marinade that was heavy with Worcestershire sauce. I smoked half of them and grilled the other half. The smoked wings had a much more pronounced taste of the Worcestershire sauce than the grilled wings. (And I've found the same results with habanero sauce, too.)

Unlike propane, you'll never wake up scorched and naked in another county because you mishandled a bag of briquettes.